About 1910, the Christian journalist and humorist G.K. Chesterton wrote a remarkably prophetic book, which accurately set forth all the fundamental social issues that would beset the oncoming 20th century. He called it, "What's Wrong With the World."
What was wrong, he contended, was that we so rarely asked what would be right. People were so focused on the ills of society, they deluded themselves into believing they had reached some kind of accord. In fact, they had not – and if they could ever bring themselves to project the kind of society they would regard as an ideal one, only then would they discover their irreconcilable discords.
"This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion," said Chesterton, "that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear each other's eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad thing. We should not by any means all admit that an active aristocracy would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood, but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one. Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who would be even more indignant if it were strong."
A devoted beer drinker, Chesterton imagined himself standing alongside the fierce abstainer Lord Cadbury in front of what they would both amicably condemn as "the bad pub." However, he added, "It would be precisely in front of the good pub that the painful personal fracas between us would occur."
"Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. We forget that while we agree about the abuses of things, we should differ very much about the uses of them."
There is no better description of the current state of Canadian conservatism. We do not ask what would be right, because we fear the real divisions between us would quickly appear and prove irreconcilable. So we paper over the issues and feign a unanimity that isn't really there.
The full article of July 30, 2005 is HERE at WorldNetDaily.
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